Publisher Kris Millegan speaks with Ed Dodge about this book, “A HISTORY OF THE GODDESS: From the Ice Age to the Bible,” the suppression of the divine feminine (and all we’ve lost as a result), and Ed’s eyewitness account of January 6, 2021, at the Capitol.
Bruce de Torres: What have we lost because of the overthrow and banishment of the mother goddess?
Ed Dodge: First and foremost, it represents women’s traditions and women’s cultural authorities. The women had rights and duties and obligations and responsibilities in society that gave them a lot of power and authority and independence that used to be a major part of human society. And it gets taken away.
In the world we grew up in, the women had basically no rights and no property. They didn’t have any sort of independent authority in the world. [In the ancient world] there were certain things that belonged to women rooted in the cycle of life. Rooted in motherhood. Not that they all have to be mothers, but that women are the reproductive side of humanity and the cooperative side of humanity.
Everything associated with life and death – midwifery and hospice, plant medicine – was all women’s work. Weaving was all women’s work. Sex was all women’s business. They were in charge of it. The men came on bended knee, bearing gifts, begging for their pleasures. They didn’t come knocking women around and raping them.
It was just a very different world where women had more authority independent of men, and that’s the main thing, the biggest loss reflected in mythology, that you have these goddesses in one era, and they’re all gone in the next era, and guest what; that reflects the women no longer having any rights or power.
Kris Millegan: Look at the story we were told as kids. The cave man hit the woman over the head and dragged her off.
Ed: That’s completely false.
Bruce: And by saying the power of women represents the cooperative principle, right there shows me the distinction between “might making right” with masculinity and the patriarchy and, like Kris just said, the cave man, versus “rights make might.” Then we do have to negotiate and collaborate and that’s a huge distinction.
